The SuperPower of Emotional Contagion

so let’s talk about superpowers

when we talk about superpowers more

often than not we’re talking about super

strength

or invisibility or super speed or even

crazy insect bites but there’s another

superpower

that a number of superheroes and

supervillains have

that get zero credit and that’s this

ability

to sense or feel what others are

feeling and or thinking and that’s an

amazing superpower if you think about it

right imagine you’re walking down the

street

and you can feel what others

are feeling or even you can see someone

across the street and feel that

that’d be amazing what would you do with

that superpower

and i asked that because research

suggests that you

do have that superpower

when i was a kid when i was real little

i

had this heightened sense almost

overheightened sense almost over

sensitive sense of others negative

emotional states

i would become overwhelmed by them

so much so that i would lose myself

in others negative emotional states like

their sadness or their anger or their

fear

and i would do anything to try to

move that person into a more positive

emotional state

and over time that became so burdensome

that i would start to remove myself from

those situations in which i would feel

those negative states from others

discontinue friendships distance myself

from interpersonal interactions

and you can imagine doing that had its

own

negative side effects so as i got older

i realized that this this sense this

this feeling of other states was not

going to go away

and i really had to work with it and

better understand it

and i have no doubt that that is kind of

what led me into my own research on the

experience of

empathy and within that whole breadth

of research and scholarship and empathy

what you find is a number of concepts

that relate to this superpower of

sharing the emotional states

right emotional sharing emotional acuity

but there’s even a very broad concept

called

emotional contagion and it’s just like

it sounds

so just like a cold is contagious or a

yawn

is even contagious right emotional

states

can be contagious you can catch the

emotional state of another person

and what’s really interesting is that

research shows that that is an actual

innate ability that we have we are born

with the ability

to sense and feel what others are

feeling we are born with this superpower

so just like a deer god is born able to

run

we’re born with this ability to connect

and communicate with other people

even more so it’s shown that this trait

has kind of a

evolutionary resilience right over

eons we’ve been able now to maintain

this quality

this attribute and why well you can

think about that right you can see why

having this ability to sense and feel

what others are feeling give us a

glimpse

into our neighbor’s world it heightens

connectivity

it heightens solidarity it heightens

community we can communicate with others

without explicitly speaking

we can share in something as natural as

an emotional state

now what do we do with this right what

do we do with this superpower well

we can ignore it just like i talked

about the idea when i was younger

that i would just kind of maybe push it

aside a little bit try to remove myself

from those situations

we can ignore that we have this

superpower right it takes a heightened

level of sensitivity

and vulnerability to really engage

in that experience to really acknowledge

that it’s there

so we don’t necessarily have to and in

fact there’s a number of

socialization processes and even a

number of professions

that teach us to kind of push that out

push that down

or we can acknowledge it we can

acknowledge that it’s happening we can

acknowledge that we have this superpower

and we can experience that beautiful

sensation

of feeling another’s emotional states

whether it’s positive state

or a negative state it’s such an

uh an amazing experience

we could also act on it emotional

contagion is just one core element of

the experience of empathy

right so you take that you mix it up

with some nice

cognitive mechanisms and perceptions you

sprinkle in some interpersonal factors

some contextual cues and some

motivational factors and you might get

social support

you might get compassion

right but emotional contagion is a core

element of that process

what’s more so is that we’re starting to

learn that we can hone

this ability this innate ability right

so i’ve told you you have a superpower

and now i’m going to tell you that you

can actually work

that muscle you can work that ability

right there’s a number of programs out

there that engage in workouts and

exercises related to

self and other awareness communication

skills related to listening

presence right understanding and

identifying key emotional traits

and emotional states

working out in this way working out that

muscle of emotional contagion this way

will help you hone

that superpower

so now i’ve told you that you have a

superpower that more than likely you’ve

let lay dormant

for who knows how long and i’ve also

told you that there are ways in which

you can start heightening that

ability so i hope that you use this

superpower for good

and that you utilize it to heighten

connectivity

solidarity and build community

especially during this incredibly

challenging time

thank you